Blasting My Way Out
by Tyrus Martin
Summary: A Star Wars story about those who slip between the cracks of Imperial Society. Don't expect any majestic Jedi/Sith combat, just a man trying to make his way in the universe. OC, but may feature canon characters depending on how things work out.


**A/N: I love Star Wars, always have, and I hope my small tale can do such a beloved universe justice. Read on and enjoy.**

A cantina barely worthy of being called a dive on this worthless dustball of a planet. How had it ever come to this? I snorted into my drink. Oh yeah, that's how. At least the air in here was nice and cool, and the Twi'lek dancer was damned good looking. I threw back another small glass of overpriced, watered-down juma and let out a sigh torn from years of practice. Couldn't even get properly drunk anymore. My senses felt irritatingly clear even after a few rounds of what was, admittedly, cheap swill. A sudden hush fell over the cantina, shaking me from my self-pity.

Well hello, something of interest. I turned to get a better view. One of those rather menacing Devaronians- mercenaries by the look of them- by the stage had had a bit too much to drink. Apparently the friendly haze of alcohol, or whatever the hell his species drank to cloud the mind, had convinced the man that the dancing girl would much rather be in his lap than on the stage. The other patrons, taking notice of the little group's armaments, had started to slowly shy away from the scene, emptying most of the tables around them. Smart of them. Never a good idea to stick around when drinks and blasters made a double booking.

I was half out of my seat before I could take a moment to think. I did not want any heat coming down on me now. While I doubted there were any real bounty hunters lounging around in this particular cantina, better safe than stunned and delivered to a crime lord. With another weary sigh I settled back down into my seat, the girl's struggles against the drunk fading into background noise as I ordered another drink.

Muffled shouts and indistinct noise from the scuffle quieted as a ringing slap sounded through the air. There was a moment of perfect silence, the crystallized moment before the storm, before the previous rumble of a fight about to be unleashed rose into a scream and I twisted in my seat once again. The Devaronian had pulled a blaster on the poor girl, who was backing away with her hands raised in supplication. Dammit to hell. His buddies had drawn and were keeping their weapons pointed towards the crowd, trying to discourage any particularly brave do-gooders. This was going to end badly, no matter who won.

The Twi'lek's eyes were wide as she looked down the barrel of the pistol. Her lekku twitched anxiously and her breathing was shallow and rapid. Was I really going to let this happen? The mercenary was going to kill her in his booze-fuelled rage and no one would do a damn thing about it. That is, unless I took a chance.

Time to remember how to be part of the solution. I rose from my seat quickly, blaster practically leaping to my hand from its holster. I kept my hand low, arm pressed against my side to present a less threatening profile. I turned slightly so that my right side was more prominent, better concealing the drawn weapon in my left hand.

My voice sounded scratchy and un-used, even to my own ears. "Look, buddy, there's no need for this. How about you just let the girl go back to dancing, and we can all have a round on me?" The Devaronian turned unfocused eyes on me, while his two friends trained their rather wobbly aim on my chest.

For a second, I actually thought I had him convinced. He looked about ready to accept my offer when the dancing girl tried to sidle out of his view. He whipped his blaster back around to point at her. "This little-" He seemed a bit stumped for words halfway through his sentence, not helped by his apparently lack of familiarity with Basic. "This- She disrespected me! Gotta pay for that."

Great. Just kriffing great. I manage to blunder my way into being a damn hero, yet again.

I tried the diplomatic approach once more. "Come on, it's not worth it. Let's just all go back to our drinks and have a good time." I could already see from his body language he wasn't going to accept. Fine then, time to get myself out of this mess. With a single swift movement I kicked their table backwards, right into the inebriated wonder trio. Drinks spilled all over them as they stumbled back. Without another second's hesitation I sprinted for the bar.

I leapt over the counter as smoothly as I could, landing in a sloppy roll before I managed to recover and scramble to press myself against the low wall. Sweat coated my palm and I tightened my grip on the blaster pistol. Already, bolts of searing red light were flying over my head, several of them over my head and rather to the right or left, but, well; no one's a very good a shot when they had been throwing back drinks like those Devaronians had.

Panicked screaming had broken out in earnest from just about every damn direction. What little I could see from my position crouched behind the bar showed most of my fellow drinkers had hit the floor in a desperate bid to avoid an extra orifice or three. I waited for what could be considered a lull in the firing and briefly popped above the counter, sending off several bolts of my own at the trio. One got lucky and was missed entirely. Grab-Hands wasn't so fortunate, and promptly found himself with a brand spanking new passageway through his brain cavity. His second friend took a glancing hit to the side and grimaced in pain. My view was promptly cut off by a blur of scantily-clad blue flesh.

The dancing girl tackled me back down below the bar, about a second before I was going to duck back down anyway. Great. "What are you doing?!" I yelled, quickly moving to press the Twi'lek down while I crouched below our cover.

"Saving your life!" She replied, shaking free of my grip to join me crouched against the low wall.

I cursed violently. "Fine! But stay _down_." I rose up slowly, chancing a look at our adversaries. Both were still unloading in our general direction without any sign of stopping for anything but a reload. I ducked my head back down quickly.

A loud crash rang through the small cantina and I turned my head in time to see the door being blasted out of its housing. My blood ran cold as I saw our new guests. Shiny white armor, check. E-11 Blastech rifles, likely set on full auto, check. Aggressive tendencies and inability to engage in subtlety, emphatically check.

The Devaronians, drunken fools that they were, switched fire to the Imperial stormtroopers immediately. The first man through the door fell to concentrated fire, but the others began trading bolts with the mercenaries from the cover of the doorway.

What in the hell was going on? Screw it, didn't matter, it was past time to leave. I grabbed the wrist of the unfortunate girl, dragging her along in a stumbling crouch to the opening in the bar's edifice. She looked as scared as I felt, but I tried to shove the fear back down. It'd do nothing but get me killed now, and I had to think clearly to escape from this mess.

I paused before leaving the relative safety of the bar. "Is there another way out of here?"

She took a shaky breath and responded, "Yes, you have to go through the door behind the stage, it leads to my dressing room, and there's an entrance that leads out behind the cantina." A scream rang out from the relative area of the Devaronians. Hopefully he was dead as dead can get.

I ran my free hand through sweat-slicked dark hair. I could do this, I'd escaped from worse. "Okay. Okay, we can do this." I pulled my spare hold-out from its holster and offered it to the girl. "Take this, and shoot anybody who has a gun and isn't a dashingly handsome scoundrel."

She almost laughed at that, but the tension drained away the humor. I tightened my grip on the pistol again, psyching myself up for the gauntlet of blasterfire I was about to run through. "Go!" I yelled, and ran through the gap in the countertop. I straightened up as I emerged, legs pumping furiously. I brought my blaster to bear on the one remaining Devaronian, and sent three bolts of packed radiation into his chest. They drilled through his flesh without resistance, leaving neat cauterized holes.

The alien dropped without a sound, blaster rifle tumbling from his grip. I kept running, dragging the Twi'lek behind me in a desperate sprint. We leapt onto the stage more or less together, and by that time the stormtroopers seemed to remember that they were rather fond of murdering guys who engaged in cantina shootouts.

Blasterfire rang out once more, several bright projectiles whizzing past my distressingly vulnerable form, pockmarking the walls. I pushed the girl into the hallway that led out of the storm of energy, following hot on her heels. I twisted at the waist to fire several shots in the general direction of our aggressors. Hopefully they'd take cover at that.

We emerged in a cramped room with a mirror, a chair, and not much else. A tunic and pants was draped over the seat, and the girl grabbed them both in one hand as we passed. She slammed her hand into the door's control panel and it slid up with a gentle whoosh of air.

Showing us the helmeted face of a stormtrooper. I like to think he was just as surprised as we were. With reflexes I wouldn't have expected from most soldiers, the dancing girl stumbled back and sent a barrage of blaster shots into the trooper. He dropped without a further sound, his torso a mess of burned flesh and melted plastoid armor.

Thank you, government contractors. Before the Twi'lek could really register what she had done, I hurried her forward, sprinting across the dusty alleyway to hide behind a squat sandy-colored building.

I exhaled in relief. Not caught yet, not by a damn long shot.

The girl's eyes were as wide as plates, and I could see her hands trembling, about to drop my spare blaster. I took it back from her as gently as I could, sliding the weapon back into its holster. I kept mine drawn. Just in case.

"Hey, hey… Dammit. Uh, what's your name?" I was floundering here. I had a distraught dancing girl who had just killed a man for the first time in her life on my hands, and on top of that, I'd likely brought down every bit of Imperial and criminal attention on the damn planet.

She sniffed, and I saw a measure of control returning to her panicked form. "Nalan, my name's Nalan." She looked at me with perhaps the most effective pleading eyes I have ever seen. "Thank you for saving me." Oh hell. I couldn't just leave her here to face the music.

I rubbed a hand over my face, my fingers scraping against the scruff of my unshaved face. "Don't thank me just yet. We have to get out of town, probably get off the whole planet. Honestly, I won't rest easy until we're in a different system altogether." I looked at her sympathetically. "I have the Hutts and the Empire on my head now. You may not want to come with me."

She shook her head firmly. "A life on the run is still better than what I had to put up with." I paused and thought about that. Well hell, she may have a good point there. The girl was tough, there was no disputing that. You'd have to be, to survive around here. Still, having to kill someone was a fair bit different than scaring off drunks or casual muggers. I could only hope she'd hold up under pressure.

I shrugged. "Your choice. First thing's first." I cast a critical eye at her 'clothes.' "Change into the outfit you grabbed earlier. You may," I coughed, "draw attention like you are now."

I could have sworn she blushed before I went to go peek around the edge of the building and keep watch on the street. Stormtroopers were milling around the cantina now, establishing a firmer perimeter. I saw a few drag the Devaronians out by the feet, dumping their corpses in the lane for removal. Or incineration, I guess. Depends on the kind of day it was. Despite the heat, I felt a sudden chill run down my spine and I drew my coat tighter around me.

I didn't much care about what happened to those scumbags, but the complete callousness on the part of the authorities was… Disturbing, to say the least. Of course, I knew all about that, didn't I?

Bad memories. And now was most definitely not the time to go wallow in my sordid past. I whispered back to Nalan, "Are you ready yet?" She emerged and nodded tightly, her eyes resolutely not looking at the troopers.

I kept a low tirade of whispering up as we walked, laying out the plan. "First we need to ditch some heat. That's what we're doing now, distancing ourselves from the crime in an orderly and inconspicuous manner. Next, we get the hell out. My ship's been taken over by thugs working for some Hutt or another. I was planning on paying off my debt, but… I need that ship more than a clean slate."

As we entered a more frequently traveled part of the city I shut my mouth, trying my best to seem normal. The girl was doing better, though you could see something was profoundly wrong in her eyes. I hoped the people in the Mos Espa market wouldn't be staring soulfully into a stranger's eyes.

The twin suns of Tatooine beat down on us, the scorching light felt like a spotlight, a blaring holographic sign telling everyone just where the dangerous fugitives were. Damn, I was getting more paranoid than usual. A ruckus broke out behind us, and I turned to see what was going on.

A squad of stormtroopers, white armor blinding in the harsh light, was making their way purposefully towards us. I shooed Nalan ahead, walking faster. The troopers began to run; shoving crowd members roughly out of the way. Yep, I was never going to take any guff from anyone about being paranoid ever again. I broke into a sprint, Nalan matching my pace immediately. We dodged and juked through the packed crowd, shoving more recalcitrant beings from our path.

As we broke through the other side of the crowd I looked back to check on our pursuers. They were still hot on the trail, and I immediately set off running again.

The massive edifice of the starport rose from the relatively low buildings of the city. I cut from the main road into a dark alleyway, Nalan following immediately. I took as many unpredictable turns as I could while still moving towards my goal, emerging from the warrens of Mos Espa's alleyways back into a main thoroughfare.

There were no troopers in sight, but I still kept my hand near my blaster. I silently removed the spare weapon and handed it to my companion. Nalan took it reluctantly, a sudden tension manifesting in her shoulders. I could only hope she wouldn't choke and get herself killed at a critical moment.

I motioned her forward and we walked casually into the port. "Docking bay fourteen," I muttered to myself, walking down the expansive hallway, looking for the opening that would lead towards my ship, and hopefully, freedom.

I saw the two blasters-for-hire first. I grabbed Nalan's arm and pulled her into the nearest opening I could find, drawing my own blaster from its holster. The two thugs hadn't seen us, and were busy passing the time with conversation. Ambush looked to be the name of the game, and I spun out of cover quickly, running towards the men impeding my progress. They heard the noise of my approach, and had just enough time to start raising their lowered blasters.

Not fast enough, it would seem. My ever-dependable pistol brought them both down without much fuss. "Come on!" I hissed back to Nalan. She hurried to join me, and I pressed myself against the wall, peering through the simple opening. It was a bit of a walk to my ship, and I thanked my lucky stars that none of the other thugs had heard our brief altercation.

There she was; the old repurposed Imperial gunship I called home. She had an official designation, recorded in some archive or long forgotten registry, but I called her the _Shrike_. Enough space for a crew of about a dozen to live comfortably, eight turret bays, four currently operational, a hyperdrive that was top of the line about ten years ago, and a navigation computer capable of taking you anywhere you'd like to go in the galaxy. The _Shrike _was a beauty if ever I saw one, carbon scoring or no.

And right now a cadre of at least six, maybe more, hired guns was putting their damned grubby paws all over my ship. The loading bay ramp was down, which meant there could be just the men I saw here, or an entirely different squad waiting inside to ambush any would-be ship thieves. It would seem blasting my way in, for once, was not the best option available.

"Okay, Nalan, this is the other half of what I do. Stick close to me and try to look threatening." Without another word, I strode into the docking bay, walking like I owned the place. The thugs raised their blasters to point directly at me, and I only gave them a contemptuous glance before continuing to stride towards my ship.

One of the fools was brave enough to speak out. "Who the kriff are you?"

I rolled my eyes as dramatically as I could. "Gardullah the Hutt sent me to reclaim this ship from some deadbeat. Your services are no longer required." To my amazement, fully half of them actually _put away their blasters. _Apparently brawn was in far greater supply than brains.

The man who'd spoken earlier, I decided to think of him as the leader of these idiots, looked at me through narrowed eyes. "What's the password? If you work for Gardullah, you'll know the passphrase to get the ship." I hadn't counted on this.

I scoffed my best scoff and glared at the thug. "I get that you're trying to be clever here, but there is no passphrase, you ignorant dolt. So how about you order your stooges there off the ship, and you can go get paid?"

Apparently the Mos Espa thug population was used to being talked down at, as their leader sullenly motioned them towards the exit. I confidently walked into my ship, keeping up the effortless façade right up to the cockpit, where I exhaled slowly and slumped into the well-worn leather of the pilot's seat. I looked up at Nalan and chuckled. "Ready to leave?"

She just stared at me, dumbfounded. "I have never seen someone be so stupid and so brave at the same time."

Laughter, the first real, joyous laughter I'd had in months bubbled up from my lungs and left me breathless. I recovered enough to say, "Stick around; you haven't seen anything yet."

I prepped the _Shrike _for takeoff, going through the old familiar checklist with half my mind elsewhere. With a start, I realized Nalan had been talking to me. "What was that?"

"I said, could you please tell me your name?"

"Rand's the name. Beran Rand." I raised the loading ramp and the engines hummed to life, warming in preparation for departure. "Nalan, if you want to pick out one of the crew cabins, feel free. There should be some food in the circular room down the hall from the rooms. Assuming those fools didn't ransack my ship. You should have time for a small meal before takeoff."  
She smiled gratefully and thanked me before heading off.

I felt the familiar slight kick to the ship's engines, the small jump in sequence that rattled the durasteel hull by the barest measure whenever the ship was prepped for takeoff. It was a flaw, something to be fixed and forgotten, but at that moment I almost cried in happiness. I was home. Everything, from my pitiful attempts at decorating the lifeless grey steel of the interior, to the slight malfunctions in the old ship's parts, comforted me.

A voice crackled into life over the comm. "_Shrike_, this is docking control, you are not cleared for takeoff, local authority impound is in effect for your vessel."

I scowled at the communications terminal. "Control, I am operating under orders from Gardullah, the impound has been lifted. Let me pass." There was a brief moment of pregnant silence before the poor sap on the other end of the connection spoke up again. "Your current ownership record checks out, please proceed with takeoff." I smiled grimly. Gardullah was going to be pissed that I used his name to steal back my ship and lift his own impounding.

"Nalan," I yelled back into the ship, "We're about to take off! Get up here and strap in." I heard her bare feet on the ship's floor within seconds. The slender Twi'lek girl slid into the co-pilot's chair. "Alright, time to do what I do best."

She looked at me with a small smirk. "What's that, Beran? Drinking and shooting?"

I glared back good-naturedly. "Shut up, Nalan, I'm only an amateur drunk." The engine's hum grew louder, and I engaged the repulsorlifts, bringing us out of dock with a careful deliberation. I killed the upward thrust for a brief moment when we were clear of the spaceport's walls. I took a single deep breath, exhaling slowly as I took in what was hopefully my last view of Tatooine.

A single touch on the panel in front of me sent the ship blasting through the atmosphere, sublight engines thrumming with power. My hands fell to the yoke and with a single motion I sent every bit of that considerable power against the gravity of the planet. The _Shrike_ burst through into cold empty space in seconds, speeding away from the scorching heap of dust I'd been stuck in for half a standard year.

The feeling of freedom that coursed through me at the sight of that winking field of starlight amid empty blackness is impossible to describe. I ran a hand through my hair again, smoothing my bangs back from my eyes. "Alright Nalan, where should we go?"


End file.
